Best posts made by AlexRaymond

I'm pondering a Star Wars place that is really stand alone and am seeking help to make it a collaboration.

/The/ story is happening out there in the background, but the focus is on a local system. Something more along the lines of the 'grittier' movies; Rogue One and Solo. During Imperial Era, an upstart system as the central focus. Not fully in revolt but enough of an Imperial presence due to resources that conflict does happen with regularity, including the planet's own native species in rebellion against human+ locals and Empire alike.

Really, just looking for others interested in joining the creative process. Can't do it alone. If I did, it would be a few years down the road until something came of it. A few other creative minds to explore the specific theme and work up something really interested would be great. Better coders than myself for the conservation of time wouldn't be turned away. Anyone willing to contribute.

Not looking to open it up for board development here so much, just seeking interested individuals willing to collaborate. I have some basic info as a start, would be glad to share with anyone interested.

Original Theme Space Opera, Retro Atomic Age

Rings of Terra is set in an alternative universe, a human race on an earth like planet met with travesty several centuries ago. During their atomic age, a much larger rogue planet entered their solar system and the two bodies collided. This created an asteroid belt in orbit around their white sun. Somehow, inhabitants of both worlds survived this and for the past two centuries, there has been a feudal struggle between the human race and mixed races brought by the rogue planet. Within this asteroid belt, divided into several rings, there are 8 large asteroids with surface areas of 2 million square miles or larger (roughly with land masses on the scale of USA or China). The humans maintained the largest of these at about 3.5 million square miles of surface.

This changed, an invading force arrived in a lightning blitz and conquered the largest land mass. The humans have been scattered to small independent asteroids and outposts. The remaining seven asteroid nations are under threat of being conquered, some have sworn fealty to this empire to help in this conquest of the solar system. The past two centuries had been a struggle for survival, fighting over resources. Now with a new threat, they are left to try and put aside their differences or join with this new cause.

I enjoy creating theme and world building, but am interested in trying this as a group effort. I am seeking individuals to help develop the various factions/nations along with me to see what we might come up with. There is a location for this game to be hosted, and I am not concerned about coding, I am looking for individuals interested in creating an original space opera them as a group effort.

A wiki is started to assist with development (http://terraring.wikidot.com/start) but its basically all that was said here. If interested please contact me here or via gmail (galacticvicelord@gmail (dot) com). It looks like we will be utilizing Slack for development/discussions.

Edit, not an edit (more than this ad info): yes, i was interested in doing Flash Gordon, but realized like most comic places, everyone enjoys different versions or has different takes on what the Flash Gordon Genre should be.

I am looking for individuals with an interest in developing theme and opening a Flash Gordon Mu*. All equal co-staff along with myself. Some primary direction, either pre Gordon influence on Mongo or post overthrow of the tyrant. Focus on the various peoples of the planet Mongo and inter relationships from alliances to open war far. Retro Sci-Fi a must! Ray guns and space ships that look like pneumatic tubes with needle noses, mingled with savage world primitives from Ape Men to dragons and flying pterodactyls.

Interest in determining a good system, potentially coding if one likes, theme developers, plot runners, story tellers, and all that. All these things I could do myself given enough time, but I just have a preference to find good contributors and staff now willing to make this a good group project. And I'm lazy at my age, I'd prefer to bounce ideas around, get excited off the creations and contributions of others, and enjoy an environment of creative feedback with constructive criticism.

Its a good sci-fi environment with unlimited potential for action, it ranges from PvE to PvP amongst the kingdoms with even a good mix of L&L for those who wish the social life while war rages across the planet.

There is a lot of potential here, in a setting developed, re-developed, visualized and re-envisioned for over 70 decades that is still going strong as a weekly strip; ie there is a ton of room to play and update it to work in a Mu* setting, taking good elements already there, adding our own as needed.

A good handful of collaborators, five or six of us, could make a vibrant active place with potential for fun on many levels; whereas in the hands of one seems destined to fail. One can do it, but a tyrant does not a game make; ie Ming the Merciless.

@bad-at-lurking That's jumping to conclusions a little. I said imperial era (between clone wars and bby 0). It involves an upstart system in revolt without enough imperial presence for conflict with full on planet bombardment. Based on Rogue One and Solo (Han as imperial trooper fighting upstarts in trench war fare). And syndicate presence for smuggler/pirate. Revoltion and change, whether white hats win or Empire dominates. Star Wars without using proper people places and things (which exist elsewhere just not on this part of the stage). Basically that fight between imperial oppression and potential rebellion but with is own heroes and villains for whatever change they fight for.

@faraday ... This is good to hear I may look into Ares as an option. That will cut down a lot of work.

So, I'm sitting here doing my now regular weekend thing, adding theme content to the current wiki to develop the regions of Mongo and give the culture a little more life (beyond mustache and goatee-always bad guys and pretty people mostly the good guys).

The whole planet makes it easy to get around, visit other regions, consistent with the majority of the comic strips, most of the serials and movies even.

But then my mind wanders. The black hole concept from /the/ movie, the one most people are familiar with and possible have seen, was a little fetched, but as a wormhole to another part of space has been used sometimes and plausible sci-fi.

That aside, my fingers and the internet reading and research has fallen on the main asteroid belt of our solar system. While I'm mostly talking to myself, throwing my voice to the void, I figure someone may listen and have advice or become interested along the way. So ...

What if instead of a planet, the larger objects of the asteroid belt where various 'kingdoms' of Mongo, with Ming sitting on Ceres or possibly one slightly larger such object?

Space travel keeps enough distance from earth, thus focusing the area of play amongst the large orbital like kingdoms in the belt, but opens up for space rockets/ships. Overall from our perspective, the planetoids and bodies are infinitesimally small (the total mass of the objects in the belt - 5% of the moon's mass), but looking at surface area, Ceres is roughly 1/3 the land mass of China. Could make standard time travels, 1-2 days between orbital bodies and such, or jumps between bodies of a day or two to string out more distance between big bodies.

Thoughts, not quite pros/cons but a list:

One Planet: easier to get around, can have larger scale conflict and battles between groups, but is it any different than picking a random planet, and calling it a space game without much space involved other than sci-fi stuff like mad science, ray guns, etc.

Asteroid Belt: Controlled areas of play, rocket ships are a big part of the picture, harder for the localized combat such as Tree Men vs Ape Men (harder but manageable, some atomic/space guild/sect helped terraform the larger bodies, both species live on one large object).

@tinuviel said in Star Wars Stand Alone - Staff Sought:

@skew Will this be Empire vs Rebels, First Order vs Whateverthefuck, Republic vs Confederates? What's the sitch, yo.

Without giving away too much.

The system is under Imperial Occupation. It is compliant but only for political purpose, to include avoiding the alternative of an Imperial storm. There is give and take here, room for resistance and sympathizers alike. There is an indigenous population as well that is generally opposed to both. The primary resource of the planet is highly prized for its technological value in subspace communications. Generically its a conflict of choice between support of Empire vs support of rebels, first loyalty is to the system itself and deciding for the character which option suits their interests and planet and pursuing those goals ICly to their end if possible.

So Locals vs Empire/Rebels/Outsiders/Natives. Its Imperial Era (between Clone Wars and A New Hope), so technically its Rebel vs Empire.

To further the thrust of what @Arkandel started and sort of what I was getting at, and others have said after, the distinction of the game and what type of MU* it is informs me what I would expect.

MUSH to me is less code focused, more RP driven. Just when I go onto a Mu* these days, it is folks in OOC room not doing much. And I can watch, come a posted, scheduled event, the OOC rooms clears and stuff happens. To me it feels like its getting away from the idea of it being a MUSH.

Feels more oriented towards a MUX maybe, or a MOO. Even a MUCK in a way, somewhere between MUD hardcode, lots of NPC quests and mobs and farming and building to do that doesn't rely on other players (yes, RPI/RPE MUDs have RP between PCs, but generally a player could play solo), and a MUSH environment.

On the spectrum, I think (and I don't know if I'm qualified to actually say there is such a Mu* spectrum), MUSH is environment provided, some meta guided, but more open for players to take initiative and do things on their own (or page/talk with staff for some guidance if they like), a MUD is more staff intensive with code set up and more control of the game and its focus; everything else is somewhere in between.

I just think along the way (late 90s), the drive of Mu*, outside of MUDs, sort of drove admin to reclaim more control. Some players learned the code and knowing where it was copied from could manipulate objects in the master code room and such. Others made puppets that snuck around dark and listened as spying devices. Some made objects that they hid in side, and let players pull them around. People got sneaky with the code and abused it, which sort of splintered the concept of the multi-user experience.

We started with far more trust in the shared environments (heh MUSE), but the trust was lost. Fewer player bases, and while lots of creative folks have left or ran out of time, seems some of the ones not to trust still linger. But instead of code breaking things, its more creep factor these days.

@Bobotron Defenders would be fun, but a group of friends could probably OTT that group endlessly on any of the multi-genre crossover comic places too.

I'm looking at Mongo itself and the people there; from the people of Frigia to Gundar and the desert tribes; from King Jugrid and the Lion Men to Queen Undina and the people under the Sea of Mystery. Battles against hawk men, shark men, ape men, snow giants, myriad dragons, terra worms, Ming loyalists, the dark dimension.

Not to set any of that. Just inspiration, room to update.

More Alex Raymond era Mongo. Though Mandrake would be pretty awesome and more people may be familiar with Phantom.

I'm in the camp that space travel time or RP downtime filler is not helping RP.

I've played countless hours of SW1, it has economy, space travel, cargo trade andv other simulators. But I'm not playing a mu* to solo a game.

In fact if I want that I'm booting up old Elite, or it's modern open source equivilant Oolite. One even has mmo servers going somewhere last time I checked. No space trade/mining mini game compares to Elite for me, inlcluding Mu*s that have tried.

This is going similar realm as that How to Change Mu thread. Coded filler is cutting into RP time. I've enjoyed the bajeezus out of coded poker, pool, bowling, tarot, sabacc, space trade, battlemechs, +combat. But really I want the interactive story telling that is Mu* (multi user) RP.

@tinuviel The major players, storylines, planets, ships (ie anything named/referenced in movie, book, comic) etc. are out there in the universe, but not part of the game.

Solo doesn't show up to work with the local smuggling group for a few months. Mon Mothma doesn't show up to start a splinter group of the rebellion. Younger Tarkin doesn't park his star destroyer over the planet to personally deal with the issues of the system. There isn't an interlude involving some component of the death star being built on the planet where players can interact with the main story. Its really stand alone with original characters (pc and NPC) in a its own fish bowl so to speak. The major story components are out there in the distant background with this focused locally.

@Ghost
There are a couple sources of information out there. The Flash Wiki (http://flashgordon.wikia.com/wiki/Flash_Gordon_Wiki) has lots of topics covered, but very limited information, whereas old Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Gordon) has a few topics with lots of information and it includes separation between Raymond's version, and other versions. The Flash Wiki is lacking this, I think it went up around the time of the Sci Fi Chan series, and was never touched again. The comic strip still runs (http://flashgordon.com/), and their site contains the 1996 run through present (still weekly).

If I could find more information, would be good to cut and paste. I don't think its out there. Plus what @Ataru indicated. Its interesting enough that it can be played around with quite a lot.

In fact that is more spot on what I was thinking. There are a few basics that carry over throughout the genre of Flash.

Mongo is a feudal realm of mixed technology, primitive to highly advanced (atomic retro advanced). The realms are all ruled by Kings/Queens. The main realms are: Arboria (Prince Barin, Timothy Dalton and Richard O'Brien), Sky City (Hawkmen, Brian Blessed), Nascent City or Ming's City and Palace, and at least two other big ones not in most movies, Frigia the snow realm, and the Land of the Lion men.

I think they can be expanded; take the Lion Men, they just live in tents and fly Sky Gyro aircraft things originally. In the later run (Jeff, on the comic strip website), they have bigger structures and more underground areas where the resistance gathers safely.

There is a bit of work to bring it up to date (ideologically, but keeping atomic retro sci fi feel), and a lot of realms to explore. The basics are always there, mentioned above, but there is so much more room. They always show other races on the planet from various lizard men to saurens (dinosaur features ones), and other odd aliens as background. Almost a determination process, where a few individuals would be better to make, vote, approve adding something versus one persons view of what this could be, and in realizing the depth of work to make it breathing, living, cohesive is what led me to advertise on the boards here.

An individual would be swamped, but a few individuals taking an area each. Working a little, getting feed back, seeing the other areas and balancing it out as they go, would do wonders to complete the setting.

And at the heart, it is settling on exactly the focus of play on a regular basis. An arc to overthrow Ming is good, but been done, and will end sooner than it began, but some system of sustainable play would be good (ie, start with Ming, but overthrow and move into feudal rule and who actually rules the planet). All things group worthy.

Maybe I'll just put thoughts up here for input and write to the wiki as decisions or some consensus comes up. I have ideas that would be fun for updating each realm, but its limited to my thoughts and as already scene, everyone has a different take on Flash; from Defenders of Earth to the Sam Jones movie.

@skew said in Star Wars Stand Alone - Staff Sought:

I hate the idea of being beholden (entirely) to a story that's fixed

This, this is the part that interests me most.

You have 3+ million habitable planets, Lucas has a Leia quote that there werre 32K systems in the Galactic Senate alone. Its a large canvas, as has been pointed out, why do we need to RP on Tatooine or Corellia, again even? Obi Luke and Chewie are skulking about the Death Star, how many PC teams do we need hanging round there leading up to the Battle of Yavin?

I'll keep you in the loop @skew, seriously going to look at Aresmush here to conserve some time and effort.

Exactly why a collaboration would be better than me trying to solo this!

The secondary thought to pre-Flash was post overthrow of Ming somehow. But what @collective just said, that’s a brilliant idea.

Fudging is fine, really it's Flash Gordon, the only canon really is atomic space age feudalism; I keep saying feudal, lost more recent strips has them wearing the outfits from Prince Valiant it seems, but it works with the setting. There would need to be regardless to make it work, but the near earth orbit of Mongo to include room for Humans and human potential is great.

And agreed @Arkandel , I am opposed to taking FCs in an FC light canon, and having them played, by friends or otherwise. I don’t want to recreate Flash and his stories, I don’t want to ever railroad or steal light from the players. I want them to shine, to be the FCs. This was my lean towards pre-flash, it could avoid the canon all together, the players could make the FCs of the Mu*, and defeat or be defeated by Ming. But @collective hit something I missed, the human interaction is a big key element that can’t be missed.

I like more heroes from earth stepping up, but I’m not looking for Mandrake or Phantom, or a King’s characters crossover (Defenders). Indie and Sam Spade are great, even a Dick Tracy tie in would be good, most probably don’t (?) realize the level of space tie in that came later in his run, first wife a moon person, his granddaughter Honeymoon being part alien (moon people). This level of crossover seems good for the many multi-verse/genre/comic cross-over places and a core group of people with this level of interest.

I like Flash taking the raygun, clean and simple, he failed, Ming is still kicking it, still interested in taking over earth, to destroy it, spare a few amusements for the collection, move on. Mongo has settled into an orbit somewhere near the asteroid belt. The time period is moved up to say mid 50s, but some tech has been reversed, earth can send up rockets, but it's costly. There is no fighting on Mongo Tuesday, dancing at the club back in Manhattan on Friday. Not opposed to an Earth location being available, just trying to keep it from earth social play.

What if, Flash overthrew Ming once, returned to Earth, learned of Ming’s return. Launched a mission and established a base for Humans to try and oppose (or somesuch). Or, basically a human realm on Mongo, any human worthy of the program to help the cause or the planet is launched to it, spends a year or two in space, and then joins the cause planetside? They would need all sorts of able bodies, scientists, fighters, historians, laborers, etc.; just a human with some noteworthy profession. Players could opt in as a spin off of the others like Mandrake or Dick Tracy? And have reason to be there, or choose a local for some exotic flavor. The earth side would be more military base 50s era than feudal kingdom, would need military leader types too.

Derail all that is wanted in regards to Ares. I'll say from only being less than a day into this project, Ares was easy to install and @Faraday was very helpful in support on the back end. I've yet to delve into anywhere near the level @ZombieGenesis has with command files and such, but accessing and manipulating the data files is pretty easy. I am a WinSCP user, though this may be changing; the good thing with Ares is that we can use the web portal at Aresmush to get into the files and edit it from there without using another program. She's done an impressive amount of data entry just in getting data files in there, but it won't be hard for us to find talents/careers and such from other source books and quickly add them into the data files. Like traditionally I'm used to just adding it (&race`newname dataobject=name|stat1|stat2), or other staff coding it in +race/add name=stuff 1|stuff2. But just jumping into the file through the portal is easier. Its like any wikimedia/wiki, copy paste the formatting, change the names, done.

Seriously easy, glad she decided to work up an FFG plugin. Unexpected and it saved a ton of time. More time to focus on theme/setting issues. Room for contributors still if anyone is interested, but we're moving forward. Or @Skew is, I'm trying to catch up.

@Collective Sorry didn't mean to imply you did, just a few here and elsewhere recall Defenders, namely Mandrake. Don't want to imply that possibility.

And Gordon shot but whereabots unknown is good. Creates a fun edge I think for play. Going to run with it ... fake news blurb

@zombiegenesis said in Star Wars Stand Alone - Staff Sought:

So judging by what you've leaked of the theme is it safe to assume you'll be primarily using Age of Rebellion as your source? What I'm really asking here is...will there be Jedi? It seems like the answer would be no but I just want to confirm that.

Yes Age of Rebellion will be the primary source, will probably borrow from others for things like additional race options. No Jedi, but some minor force elements, you are correct.

@Collective said in Savior of the Universe: Flash AhhhhAAA!:

Note that this is absolutely not designed to be a damper on your enthusiasm, but if you are assigning values to the various cultures they didn't have in the source material and moving them off Mongo to a unique setting of asteroids (with internal or external atmospheres and biospheres), why are you doing Flash Gordon? And are you still doing it?

At what point do you wander into 'unique theme' territory?

No damper at all, I'm not gung ho, full speed. It is something I think would be fun. Criticism is quite welcome, I would know early if I was simply wasting my time. And again, I'd prefer a collaborative effort to develop together, but limited return. One vote of interest in helping. I'm slowly rolling along with solo interest and no light at the end of the tunnel, I don't even know if I'm in the tunnel.

I think before its looked at as 'unique theme', the core that is Flash Gordon, and what makes it Flash, is bares looking at.

1. Rocket ships, ray guns, modern industrial/atomic age progressive technology (like steampunk has Victorian rocket ships that go to the moon, Jules Verne, but 30s-50s era).

2. Tyrant overlord, highly feudal L&L society.

3. Exotic locations, peoples, beasts; a bend on anthro-species (lion men, hawk men, shark men, lizard men, so on, etc.), typical fantasy like beasts (dragons, land worms, harpy bats, mostly dinosaur and dragon like stuff), rigid environs that technology allows survival (aqua lung to give humans ability to breath water, invisible barrier suits to live in the snow, men wearing asbestos suits to live in fire or near lava).

Are individual planets unique to Flash Gordon? No. Aside from the 1980 Movie, which exists within a black hole/pocket dimension, and they fly through open weird space to get to the various planets, many more modern versions utilize the wormhole theory to place it in another solar system or galaxy with multiple planets. The common similarity is Ming is overlord of feudal states, the humans help them unite and rebel.

Have I changed the races from the most common in the comics and movies? No. Giving them culture is just not done so much. A Shark Man or Gorilla Man is usually the enemy because they look like hulks, have big scary teeth and no one wants to fight that in hand to hand combat. I have started giving them cultural names, but humans still call them Hawk Men or Lion Men because, human and lazy.

Does Mongo come near earth? Yes, the original series and many have had it as a rogue planet that drifts into our Solar System. Earlier versions never got into the why of this, as most readers wanted the weekly action serial of adventure and didn't think too long and hard as to why? Later versions through in typical alien invasion stuff, need earth's resources, sometimes Mongo is too dead and he wants the entire planet.

Is any of this right, or does it drift too far from 'core' Flash? I do not honestly know, those who enjoy Flash all have a different preference, and know different versions. Should I decide alone what is right and wrong, probably not. It bares open discussion certainly, but until I have open discussion, I'm limited to occasional feedback in this thread. Which is very much welcome.

Edit: Why am I doing it? I enjoy space action adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, and even some L&L politics. Flash has all of this and people are familiar enough to understand its lots of crazy action, where you fire ray guns or lasers, escape from big monsters, have hectic chases on weird things like snowbirds or air sleds or even rocket ships maybe.

@Collective said in Savior of the Universe: Flash AhhhhAAA!:

Fair enough!

I like the 'parallel dimension'/wormhole stuff myself. Or take a page from Marvel (or, God(s) help us, Gor) and have Mongo as a rouge planet that settles into a 'counter-earth' orbit.

On the wormhole/parallel dimension spectrum, are you still thinking one planet will suffice or multiple planets?

Are space ships and space travel an appeal to potential players? Only asking as that's my line of reasoning for objects in the asteroid belt (that and at some points, the planet Mongo/Ming is stopped just beyond that region in the comics). Even in the Movie, Princess Aura has a rocket ship when she takes Flash from Ming's City to Arboria. Are they just background or would players want space travel and potential ship to ship conflict?

Counter Earth Orbit: Very interesting but this changes a lot of dynamics, solely on the idea that the travel distance between the rogue planet and earth isn't that far; a ship launches counter to earths revolution around the sun, wouldn't take more than 6 months to hit Mongo and vice verse (real math/science not included). We'd either need to make ships travel faster so it takes less time, or ponder more the level of interaction between Mongo and Earth. I get that Earth is pretty important in Defenders of the Earth, and it is utilized a little in middle runs (late 40s-50s). Sort of makes it a Battlefront: Earth's Orbit, more combat oriented war style game with more necessary code with more involved staff to keep tabs on the battlefront and battles. Doesn't change what little I've scratched at the surface of some theme of a solitary planet, just needs more consideration than keeping distance between Earth and Mongo and focusing emphasis on play on Mongo.

I like single planet for the very feudal feel of it, but I like multiple locations and it can have a feudal feel (Dune, Star Wars, you name it). I am good with wormhole/pocket dimension, gives it more sci-fi/sci-fantasy cross over, I like the potential of asteroid belt because lends to more sci-fi than fantasy. The asteroid belt gives a little more credit to things like random pirate planet showing up or introduction of another 'world' as play continues.

Edit: I meant to be brief, but still a few paragraphs there, sorry about wordy responses.

@Bobotron said in Savior of the Universe: Flash AhhhhAAA!:

@AlexRaymond
Don't do multiple planets.

This works, I haven't done anything by way of writing ideas down or theme towards multiple planets or even the celestial bodies/dwarf planets asteroid belt thing (though this thought does linger in my mind).

I'm still chewing on @Collective's counter earth orbit idea. I keep pondering pros/cons and how it fits to sci-fi mu*.

My main con for this is proximity to earth, which lends itself more to small group campaign style play. IE; stop the launch of the invasion force, stop the meteor, the race to earth cause Ming sent assassins. It has a lot of fun potential, but seems bent towards smaller group because if you did that stuff with a mu* of 15 or more players, the half that didn't get to participate would be up in arms about not getting plot.

However, its sitting more in my mind for the pros. This close makes it an eminent danger more than anything further out (Mars/asteroid belt, any other planet in the system) in the modern mind. Easier to have new characters that show up. With a planet that is further out, rockets landing on Mongo seems less likely a regular occurrence. Makes it easy to have both sides utilizing near orbit to planetary orbit ships for measures/counter measures which could include allowing the new group to be 'shot' down and surviving as an introduction to play occasionally. Could be more atmospheric level fighting with 'space ships' without going into space travel itself. And would still keep focus on the feudal state on the planet itself as the majority of focus I think.

And anything considered so far is retained; wormhole or asteroid belt would take reworking some of the ideas.